Traditionally, seed planting apparatus had a fixed frame having a series of seed planting units perpendicularly positioned to the planting direction. Such seed planting apparatus must be towed by a tractor using a hitching pole. Over the years, in order to optimize the seeding process and as the power of the tractor engines increased, more seed planting units have been added to the seed planting apparatus, thus increasing the width of the planters. As the areas covered by cities have increased or as new land have been developed or acquired by farmers, the travel distance between different fields of a farm have considerably increased, thus increasing the need for a seed planting apparatus being able to travel over existing roads.
In order to overcome such problems, pivotally foldable seed planting apparatus have been developed. Such apparatus typically comprises one or two longitudinal members holding one or more seed planting units and one or more fertilizer discs. The members may be pivoted around a vertical axis position within the center of the frame of the seed planting apparatus, thus considerably reducing the width of the seed planting apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,430,972 issued Oct. 7, 2008 to the inventor of the present invention shows a seed planter allowing the seed planters unit supports to be folded along the frame of the seed planter apparatus. The reduced width of the described seed planter facilitates public road travel in countries where road are large, such as in North America, but make it impracticable on narrower road such as in European or Asiatic countries.
To enact the Agriculture Agreement adopted by the World Trading Organization, many countries have agreed to reduce the subsidizing offered to farmers. As a consequence, farmer will need to improve the efficiency of their agricultural process and to reduce the expenses allocated to equipment and employees. However, even if a pivotally foldable seed planting apparatus would avoid a farmer to buy multiple seed planters by allowing transport between the different fields, in many countries, a large proportion of roads are still too narrow to allow a folded seed planting apparatus to freely travel.
There is therefore a need for a seed planting apparatus having foldable members and having a width allowing the apparatus to travel on most of the roads while folded.